Her Man On Three Rivers Ranch

“Two coffees? You must be needing extra caffeine today,” she said as she turned to make his order. “Guess running a ranch like Three Rivers takes a lot of energy.”

Energy? No, it took working every waking moment, along with his very heart and soul, to make sure the one-hundred-and-seventy-year-old ranch not only remained solvent, but also kept improving. It was a task that had consumed his life for the past five years and the main reason he was still single at the age of thirty-eight.

“I have a guest with me,” he explained. “She’s waiting out at one of the tables.”

Emily-Ann peered past his shoulder to the small square of window overlooking the coffee shop’s patio.

“Oh! That’s Katherine!” She quickly made a shooing gesture toward the door. “You go on outside and I’ll bring the coffees to your table. Anything else? The brownies are still warm.”

Blake pulled more bills from his wallet. “Okay, Emily-Ann. You’re a good saleslady. Two brownies. If Katherine doesn’t want it, I’ll take it home to my niece.”

“Coming right up,” she cheerfully replied.

He left the building and joined Katherine at the tiny table. “The coffee is coming right out,” he informed her. “Along with a couple of brownies. So I hope you’re hungry.”

A wide smile spread her lips and Blake was struck all over again by the warmth of her expression.

“Does anyone have to be hungry to eat a brownie?” she asked, then glanced toward the small building. “I wasn’t aware that Emily-Ann served customers outside. She must consider you very special.”

He let out a short laugh. “Not really. I’ve known her since she was just a little kid. She and my youngest sister, Camille, went through twelve grades of school together. They’re still good friends.”

“I see. I remember Camille. She was a year or so younger than me, I think. And you had another sister, too. Vivian, right?”

She apparently remembered far more about his family than he did about hers. But that wasn’t unusual. The Hollisters had lived in Yavapai County for over a century and a half. The folks who didn’t know them personally were at least familiar with the name.

“That’s right.”

“So how are your sisters? And the rest of your family?” she asked.

She was wearing a white skirt that hugged her hips and legs, with a pale blue sleeveless blouse. Every now and then the desert breeze caused the thin fabric to flutter against the thrust of her breasts, giving him a vague glimpse of some sort of lacy garment beneath. Blake couldn’t remember the last time he’d noticed a woman’s clothing or the way she smelled. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d wanted to take a few minutes out of his day to talk to one. Yet being here with Katherine was causing everything inside him to buzz with excitement.

“They’re fine. All the family is fine,” he said, then, forcing himself, added, “Except for Dad. He died five years ago.”

A somber expression stole over her face. “Yes, my father mentioned to me that Joel Hollister had died. Something about a horse accident, is that right?”

Blake nodded stiffly. “Yes. There was a horse involved, but we’re not sure how it happened.”

At that moment Emily-Ann emerged from the coffee shop carrying their orders. She smiled coyly at Katherine as she placed the coffees and brownies on the table.

“Hi, Katherine. You’re keeping some bad company this morning, aren’t you?” she teased, her gaze rolling to Blake.

“Blake was kind enough to invite me for coffee,” she told Emily-Ann. “We’ve not seen each other in years.”

Emily-Ann chuckled. “That’s not surprising. Blake treats us townsfolk like we have the plague. He only comes around in a blue moon. You two enjoy your coffee.”

With a swirl of her long skirt, Emily-Ann turned and walked back into the building. Across the table, Katherine cast him an awkward smile. “She likes to tease.”

“It wouldn’t be Emily-Ann if she wasn’t joking about something,” he said. “Which is easier than talking about herself, I suppose. She’s not had an easy life.”

Tilting her head, she gently stirred her coffee. “Most of us haven’t.”

The wistful note in her voice caused question after question to swirl through Blake’s thoughts. The most important one being whether she was married or attached to a special man.

He took a cautious sip from his coffee. “So what brought you back to Wickenburg?” he asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“My father. He suffered a stroke and wasn’t mobile enough to care for himself. My brother, Aaron, wouldn’t offer to help and Mom didn’t really care what happened to Dad. You see, she divorced him when I was eighteen—right after I’d graduated high school. That’s when she moved me and Aaron to San Diego. She’s still living there near her sister.”

So Katherine had been positioned between bitter parents, he thought ruefully. Although Blake and his siblings had lost their father, they’d been spared that kind of misery. “So you decided to shoulder the responsibility of helping your father,” he mused aloud. “How is he doing now?”

She shook her head and Blake was certain he saw a mist of tears in her gray eyes.

“He passed away a year ago, last spring.” She let out a heavy breath. “After I’d dealt with his funeral, I kept thinking there was nothing here in Wickenburg for me and then I decided I was wrong. My son likes it here. He’s made lots of friends in school and I’ve made new friends, too. Along with getting reacquainted with old ones. Plus, I have a job I like. So I decided not to uproot again.”

She had a son! Blake’s gaze instantly slipped to her left hand, but there was no sign of a wedding ring. Yet he wasn’t ready to make the deduction that she was single. She could’ve simply left the piece of jewelry off today.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he said. “I hadn’t heard.”

She shrugged. “At least he’s not suffering now.”

He took a bite of the brownie as more questions darted through his mind. “Tell me about your son.”

Her smile held the same sort of pride he saw on his mother’s face when she spoke of her children.

“Nick is my only child. He’s ten years old and at the moment he can’t decide whether he wants to be an air force pilot or a point guard for the Phoenix Suns. Next week, he might want to be a neurosurgeon. At least he loves school. So that’s one worry I don’t have.”

Envy slashed through Blake. At one point in his life, he’d hoped and planned to have a wife and several children of his own. But the closest he’d ever gotten was a broken engagement. Now, after three years of trying to forget the humiliation of being dumped before the wedding, Blake had pretty much convinced himself that marriage and a family weren’t meant for him.

“What about your husband? What does he do for a living?”

Her gaze turned out toward the street. “Cliff died seven years ago in a single-car accident. After that, it’s just been me and Nick on our own.”

Blake was stunned. This warm, beautiful woman had been a widow for seven long years? Raising a son on her own? It didn’t seem possible.

“I don’t know what to say, Katherine. Except that I wish things had gone better for you.”

She shrugged and Blake’s gaze was once again drawn to the shiny black waves brushing the top of her shoulders. He figured if he was ever close enough to bury his face in her hair, it would smell like flowers and sunshine. And her skin would feel just as smooth as it looked.

“I wish so, too,” she murmured, then cast him a lopsided smile. “But that’s enough about me. What about you? I imagine you’ve been married for ages and have at least three kids.”

His gaze fell to the brown liquid swirling in his cup. “You imagined wrong. I had a fiancée once but never had a wife. No kids, either. I guess you could say I’m married to Three Rivers Ranch.”

At least that was what Lenore had told Blake when she’d slipped off her engagement ring and handed it back to him. Even though the memory of that humiliating scene was still as fresh as the day it had happened three years ago, he wasn’t about to share it with this woman. Katherine hardly needed to know he’d been unable to hold on to his intended bride.

* * *

Blake Hollister was single! Katherine was dumbfounded. He’d seemed like the type of guy who would mature into a family man like his father, Joel. Or perhaps that was just the way Katherine had wanted to see him.

When she’d been a senior in high school, Blake had been twenty-six. Katherine had thought he was the best-looking man on earth. Tall and muscular with thick sable-brown hair and handsomely carved features. Just getting a glimpse of him had set her eighteen-year-old heart aflutter. And if by chance he did happen to pass close enough to say hello to her, she’d felt like she’d been transported to heaven.